A local farmer will represent Canada at a global plowing competition in Denmark next year, after finishing at the top of his class at a national competition in Thorndale on Aug. 16.
Clifford area resident Carman Weppler placed first in the Senior Conventional Plow class at the CanPlow2014 competition. The win means he will represent Canada at the World Ploughing Championship in Denmark in 2015.
The Canadian competition was a dream week of plowing for Weppler and something he has worked towards for 26 years.
The 36-year-old began plowing in competitions when he was 10 years old, competing for the first time at an International Plowing Match (IPM) in Bruce County in 1993. He has been competing in the Ontario Championship class for the past 10 years, earning Reserve Champion status at the 2013 event in Mitchell, which qualified him for last week’s Canadian championship.
Only the first place finishers at the CanPlow level move on to the worlds, where he expects to face stiff competition.
“It’s pretty intense, that’s for sure. They’re the best in the world,” said Weppler, who notes that Europeans take their plowing substantially more seriously than North Americans.
“The way we treat our hockey players and baseball players, that’s how the European countries treat plowmen,” he said.
While they may not receive the millions bestowed on professional athletes here, Weppler said top European plowmen receive considerable financial rewards from their national plowing associations for representing their country.
“There’s way more emphasis and support there than plowing in North America.”
Weppler says there are several elements to championship-calibre plowing.
“Straightness is the key. That’s always the key,” he said, adding, “Consistency and uniformity of all your furrows is important too.”
A past president of the Wellington County Plowmen’s Association, Weppler operates a dairy and poultry farm on the Minto-Normanby Townline, the border between Wellington and Grey County. The family operation includes 25 dairy cattle, about 3,000 laying chickens and cash cropping.
Ironically, while he once plowed “thousands of acres per year” between his own farm and those of his neighbours, Weppler no longer does traditional plowing on his farm.
“Actually we don’t plow any land any more. We’re all conservation tillage stuff,” said Weppler, adding he sold his last field plow two years ago.
While he says he usually gets in about a week of practice plowing at home, Weppler says plowing is “like any other competition, a lot of it’s mental. You’ve got to be psychologically prepared for it.”
Though he planned to attend the Wellington County Plowing Match on Aug. 21 and the IPM in Simcoe County in September, Weppler doesn’t plan to enter a lot of competitions this season. He’s still got a farm to run, after all.
“I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire around here. We’re building a new heifer barn,” he notes. “I’ve got plenty of work to do. It’s not like time stands still.”
